Suisei

Known today for award-winning animations like "Inaka Isha" or "Atama Yama", Koji Yamamura proved his talent from his very first short film, "Suisei". A very immersive work of art from him because without noticing, it can transport you above and beneath the surface of a world made with only layers of clay and 'fragments' of light. The technique of claymation and the colors used are reminiscent of the brilliant Russian animator Yuriy Norshteyn, and because the form was not perfected (we could say at the time Mr. Yamamura lacked a style) the film has a "rough" beauty of a first work, but a beautiful work ... nonetheless.

The following are taken from an interview conducted by the BFI talking retrospectively to Mr. Yamamura about his works. Enjoy:

"This was my university graduation project, shot on 16mm. The film was inspired by M.C. Escher’s print Three Worlds, which depicts a large pool in autumn in which you can see a large fish under the surface, leaves floating on top and the reflections of trees, although you can’t see the trees themselves. In my film, a man looks at his reflection in a pond, then throws an apple into the water, breaking its surface, before beginning to imagine how he looks from the perspective of the fish beneath.

I often play with the idea of reflections in my films – how we only know ourselves from our own subjective positions, even when we’re looking in a mirror. We never really get a sense of how we look or act from an outside perspective. We only exist in our own minds. You can see this in the opening scene of Mt. Head, when we look at the main character for quite some time before we realise he is actually looking at himself in the mirror.

My other major inspiration was the Indian animator Ishu Patel’s film Afterlife (1978), made for the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada. He was a jury member for the first Hiroshima International Animation Film Festival in 1985. After seeing his films I really wanted to make my own experimental and artistic animations like this. "

Rate a 4
Eng sub only for title and credits. The rest of the film was sound effects, no spoken audio.
Special note:This anime is the first Japanese animated clay painting animation.

Story
If there was a story or a underling message it was hidden from me. From what i could make out it was metaphorical and or symbolic to a fishing adventure to what regard i am not sure. The story can be followed visually, as in there is no real jump from scene to scene. Although, the fact it does a 360 loop around was quite confusing.

art
-clay animation
-not exciting too look at but cool considering it was ... made from clay
-some of the color choices and style could have been improved like the water.
-In some scenes like the multiple fish the scene was either too long or too cycled(looped).

sound
animation sounds were okay